There's work to do on 'D' for Bears

Upon further review, maybe the Bears' defense wasn't as good as coach Lovie Smith suggested Sunday when he said, “Our defense outplayed their defense. That's the way you look at it.”

Only if you're in a house of mirrors would the vision of a Bears defense that yielded 543 yards of total offense be better than a Carolina Panthers unit that permitted 317 yards, even though the Bears came out on top 34-29.

By noon Monday, Smith gave a more realistic assessment.

“Defensively, we didn't play as well as we needed to, it's kind of as simple as that,” he said. “Whenever you give up that many yards you're not happy with that.”

That could be an accurate description of the Bears' defense through the first four weeks of the season.

Granted they have played some of the NFL's strongest offensive units, but the Bears are No. 31 in total team defense, having allowed an average of 425.8 yards per game. Only the New England Patriots are worse.

The Bears are 24th in rushing yards allowed per game at 124.2 and even worse against the pass, where they have allowed an average of 301.5 yards, 29th in the league.

“We need to get more pressure on them,” Smith said of a defense that failed to sack rookie quarterback Cam Newton even once, while he threw 46 passes.

“We gave up big plays in the passing game. We didn't play the run well. You just can't have that, but you have to give (the Panthers) a lot of credit.”

True, the Panthers under coach Ron Rivera appear to be a much-improved unit over the 2-14 team that got John Fox fired last year.

But the Bears' defense deserves criticism as well. The Panthers had a ridiculous 10 plays of 20 yards or longer Sunday. They have put up monster numbers throwing the ball this year in each of their games, partly because they have trailed much of the time, and that was true Sunday against the Bears.

But the 169 rushing yards seems especially irksome to a team that prides itself on stopping the run.

“We're working on that,” Smith said. “I can't give you a reason why (Sunday was so bad). Believe me, if we knew that we wouldn't let it happen. We wouldn't be talking about it afterwards.

“When things aren't working exactly the way we like, we go back to the practice field, we identify it, which we have, and we'll work to get it better.

“We won't play defense like that very often around here. It's still early. We'll get the run defense — and not just the run defense — I'm as disappointed in some of the big plays that we've given up defensively as much as anything, but these are all correctable things.”

The Bears have less than a week to get what ails their defense cured before they face the Lions (4-0) in Detroit on national TV on Monday night.

If not, it will surely be exposed by a Detroit passing offense that is averaging 301.2 yards, seventh best in the NFL.

“We just haven't played good,” cornerback Charles Tillman said. “We've missed some easy tackles, myself included. We definitely have to play defense way better if we expect to win in Detroit because they're playing unbelievable right now.

“They're on fire, and in order for us to win against a team like that, we definitely have to bring our ‘A' game in all three phases.”

Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford has thrown 11 touchdown passes and just 3 interceptions. His 100.3 passer rating is No. 7 in the NFL, and “ginormous” wide receiver Calvin Johnson already has an NFL-best 8 touchdown catches.

“He's probably the top receiver in the league right now as far as just throwing the ball up and just letting him go up and get it,” Tillman said of the 6-foot-5, 236-pound Johnson.

“He's the Goliath of receivers. As a secondary we'll definitely have our hands full trying to contain him.”

If not, Johnson could have his hands full of touchdown passes.

ŸJOIN US: If you're a Total Access subscriber at dailyherald.com, join Bob LeGere for more Bears talk at our first “Ask The Sports Writers” event on Wednesday, Oct. 12, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at John Barleycorn, 1100 American Lane, Schaumburg. Our panel of experts also will include Mike Imrem, Barry Rozner and John Dietz, with Joe Aguilar as our host. The evening Q&A session includes a buffet and drinks. To attend, Total Access subscribers should send an email to Staevents@dailyherald.com with the subject line “Ask the Sports Writers.”